pacov pacov

pacov's League of Legends general discussion thread - strategies, etc

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pacov's League of Legends general discussion thread - strategies, etc

from JoeUser Forums

I've locked/archived this thread/blog and have started a new discussion over here:  http://forums.demigodthegame.com/454943/

Please join me if you like.

 

 

 

 

 

Am I streaming? 

 

 

Well, I started a thread  back in August (https://forums.joeuser.com/411269/) that's seen a lot of activity and actually had quite a few good bits of information for new and old players alike.  I figure it's time to start a new thread and perhaps keep the OP up-to-date with useful information, etc.  Feel free to use this post for any LoL discussion, etc.

Super fast background:  I played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust.  Back in August 2011 or so, I started getting heavily involved in LoL and folks have been kind enough to chime in with tips and links to various sites that have been quite useful to me.  In addition, I've been able to keep up with folks that I've played Demigod with in the past and meet some new folks that play LoL and frequent these message boards. 

Here's some of the things I've learned in the previous thread:

 New Player tips

  • Play the tutorial.
  • Consider picking up the starter bundle.  It's 530 RP (that's about $4).  You get 8 champs unlocked, a 4 win IP boost and a 10 win XP boost.  It's a pretty good deal (used it recently on an alt account).  You can find it in the game store under bundles.
  • Riot gives you 400 RP as soon as you hit level 5.  It's enough to buy some skins, a boost, or a cheap character. 
  • Learn to last hit!  Last hitting is simply landing the last hit on creeps.  If you last hit, you get gold for that kill.  The number of creeps you have killed is tracked in a value called CS.  You can see this number in the top right hand corner of the ui or by pressing tab.  Here's a really simple tutorial re: last hitting if you are brand new - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LheiRB76x5g
  • Read some guides on any character you want to try out.  The recommended builds (what you see when you go to a shop) are not optimal.  The guides include item suggestions and skill orders.  These are very useful in learning decent ways to build characters
  • Use the rune combiner to get level 3 runes prior to level 20 if you like.  You will need 375 IP.  Buy any tier 1 rune that costs 15 IP.  You need to purchase 25 of these.  Click on your rune page.  In the bottom right hand corner there is a button called the Rune Combiner.  If you place 5 runes in there, you can get a random rune that is 1 tier higher (eg if you have 5 tier 1 runes, you will get 1 random tier 2 rune.  Anyway, the math works out such that you spend 375 IP ( buy 25 tier 1 15 IP runes) and you get 1 completely random tier 3 rune.  Some of the quintessences are 2k IP, so if you luck out and get one of those, you just won the lottery.  You can always keep the random tier 2 rune if you end up with something good and don't want to trade it out yet.
  • Consider setting aside IP for tier 3 runes (available at level 20 and above).  You can't purchase them with real money - only IP.  Keep that in mind.

Great site I visit every day for LoL related news - http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends

pacov's misc info

Here's a guide I made

pacov's Guide to Improving at League of Legends and Moving Up in Elo

k - so I'm just going to put down some of my thoughts.  I'm not amazing at this game, but I do certain things that improve my odds of winning in ranked and so far its panning out just fine (bronze 5 to gold 5 in about a month or so).  We all have varied skill levels, so some of this might be useful and some not.  Caveat complete.

Prerequisite- you need to know how to play every single role.  You don't have to be a god at every single role (more power to you if you are - I'm certainly not).  You need to be able to play at a serviceable level in every single role and excel at least at 1 role (preferably 2).  In my case, I'm good at support and adc.  I'm not great, but have serviceable mids and jungles and so so tops.  Knowing what you are good at and bad at is very important.  If you don't know, I can probably tell you - but you really should know...  Anyway, you need to have enough champs to make solid picks in any role and you need to be able to cover any role if it comes down to it.  I'll talk about how to get better at specific roles in a bit.

Champ select advice - Don't be the "fill" guy unless you really feel like you are awesome in all roles.  Call your preferred role immediately when you hit the lobby.  Say "adc pref."  Do this as soon as you hit the lobby.  Some people believe that if you call a role you magically get it.  This is stupid, but if you call something out, folks will often accomodate your request.  If you are feeling wishy washy for whatever reason, call out multiple roles in order of what you want to play - "adc/mid pref."  In my experience, you generally do not want to call support.  It's a very important role, but you want to be in a position to carry every single game if possible.  If you aren't calling out a role, you are hoping that other players can carry you.  If you are hoping that folks will carry you, you don't deserve to win.  You need to know your best roles and you absolutely should request them.

Solo or duo in ranked? - Well, my 1st thought here is that you should solo.  If you solo, you have to rely on yourself.  IMO - its a much bigger test of skill to play solo and win than to duo.  Do you want someone to carry you or do you really want to know that you are actually good?  That said, provided you have the right duo partner, you can increase your odds of winning quite a bit.  The simple math is that instead of having 4 teammates as unknown quantities, you only have 3.  If you have a good duo teammate, you know what you can expect.  When you duo, you get the most bang for your buck by having complimentary roles.  Support/adc is good; jungle/mid also works.  Even if you don't have direct symmetry in roles, if you are an amazing mid and I'm an amazing adc, our odds go up quite a bit if we both get those roles.  Our odds go way down if we can't get those roles and are forced to play out of positions that we are weaker.  For example, Bryff is a good mid.  If he duo's up with me, the only way he will get to play that role is for me to call mid, take it myself, and then put myself into a position like support where I can't carry out of (I'm always 1st pick, Bryff is always last pick when we duo)... that and I have to show the mid I'm picking at the start which means Bryff gets hard countered.  In short, we can expect that we will be a disadvantage when duo queuing.  Now, if Bryff queued up with someone at a lower elo than himself that was solid, he'd likely be 1st pick and be able to get mid and have a better chance of carrying the game.  Anyway, you need to keep in mind where you end up in pick order when duoing if you aren't looking to go adc/support.  If you want that, you can usually get it. 

How do you get better in roles that you are not good at? - Well, here's what I do.  And this is really what I do on a regular basis.  I think about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at.  For instance, I realized that I don't play any hyper carry ads.  So, I read up on hyper carries like vayne and kog maw.  I look for guides on how to build them (most adcs are the same btw :P ), I look for vids on how people play them (eg how do I all in with a specific champ - is there a combo - when do I all in - what's the best way for me to burst - how should I behave in lane with this champ).  Then, I fire up a custom game and try out the mechanics of whatever champ vs AI.  Usually I learn a few tricks during that custom on how to position myself, etc.  Then, I'm off to normal games where I'll request the role or character I'm trying out.  Now, people still report your for being awful in normals, but it really is where you need to try out characters to see if you are any good or not as the bots are useless for proving your skill level to yourself.  So, fire up that normal and ask to play a role (again - after you've tried out the champ against bots).  If you don't know anyone you are with and you are quite awful, I suggest muting everyone at the start of the game.  Then, do your best.  Continue with this until you feel like you have a serviceable skill level in whatever role.  And keep in mind what you need to work on.  For me, I noticed I didn't really have alot of mids for ranked, so I started practicing some with gragas against and karth.  That way, I'll be able to get the job done if I need to play mid.  The next thing I need to do is put more time into being better top lane. Again, because while I prefer adc/support, I might need to play top for the team.  So, best to be ready for it.  Put your time in and practice roles. 

One last thought - there are certain things you can generally expect in ranked.  1 - if you are 1st pick, you generally can call whatever you want.  Common knowledge, I'm sure - but I'll add - CALL WHATEVER YOU WANT.  2 - if you duo queue, you generally can lock down both adc and support.  It works best if your adc is 1st pick, ofc.  I've bumped into like 10 random dedicated supports in all of my games of LoL.  People generally aren't going to call support. So, if you are 1st pick and duo'd, just call adc and then your duo partner can almost always get support.

 

Lol King profiles for ranked tracking

I'm not going to update this regularly, so just consider it a snapshot (I'll add a date when I update them).  Anyway, I enjoy seeing folks progress through ranked and keeping tabs on that sort of thing from time to time. 

Snapshot updated 05/28/2014

 Character guides

Mid Ziggs by cow - http://www.lolking.net/guides/7906
11,195,172 views 5,007 replies
Reply #4276 from Demigod Forums Top

and more from riot directly re: the "new" game mode

Hey All!

By this point many of you have likely heard about the craziness of duplicate champions going on in custom games right now (and for those that haven't, check this video: http://youtu.be/fES4xl2namY). While we weren't expecting players to be able to play this yet, the response has been pretty awesome so I wanted to pull the curtain back and chat about what this means.

For the past few months, there's been a team at Riot creating original, experimental game modes for players to check out. The duplicate champion mode - we call it One For All internally - is the first mode from that effort we'll be sharing with you in the future. Featured game modes are intended to be unique short-lived experiences that we'll release regularly, and we're really excited by the possibilities. Cycling new modes will let us work with you guys to create new experiences that would have been difficult to do as permanent game features, and it gives us free reign to go mildly crazy. Also, cycling new modes in and out will allow us to keep these things fresh and focused from a gameplay perspective.

One For All will be a great launch mode and, as a designer, my mind's already looking to future possibilities. What types of game modes would you like to see? Our team wants to make this a very open development process, and your feedback will be incredibly important in informing what modes we should pursue and what others should be shelved. We're extremely excited to work with you guys over the coming months, and I can't wait to see what fun, unique experiences we'll be able to create together.

As for One For All… if you couldn't tell, it's currently incomplete and still has a number of bugs associated with it, so we'll be disabling the workaround that allows access to it later this week. That said, if you got the chance to try it (or if you've got some ideas on it), feel free to give us some feedback - and let me know who the OP champions are, so my team can finally win some of our internal playtests!

Contrary to earlier implications, no one has been banned for playing this game mode nor will anyone be banned for playing during the remainder of the time it is accessible. One For All will be making its reappearance before the new year with a bunch of new features (including matchmaking!), so you won't have to wait too long before you see it again.

In the meantime, have fun! Try out Fiddlesticks if you haven't: five Fiddles is one of the scariest things I think I've ever seen. It's just… birds all day.

Reply #4277 from Demigod Forums Top

and I'm playing in a ranked 5's team now... with some new pals + hunny.  Game 1 was a retarded cluster fuck.  People not communicating well vs a geniunely awful team.  They did some work against us early and then we crushed it.  Game 2 we just crushed it.  It's more than likely a short lived temp team.

Anyway, streaming game 3 in a min.

ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #4278 from Demigod Forums Top

well, new ranked team went 5/0.  That apparently places you in silver 1.  So...woo.... silver 1... we did it.  ...

Anywho, it was fun.  I played 1 game as cait adc and then went aatrox jungle for the other 4.  Mostly stomps in games.  Our roster is plat/golds atm.  The best we faced was diamond 1 and diamond 5.  Nothing all that exciting. 

I'm still up for filling on the other ranked team whenever and doing my best ofc. 

 

I did not try out the 5x v 5y mode tonight unfortunately.  It's being patched out wed or thurs, so hopefully I get to try it before its gone.  We see.

Oh - and I'm still really enjoying marvel heroes.  When I 1st played it, you could get exactly 1 extra hero via random drop... or pay 10-20 for another 1 - no in game LP purchase possible.  Kind of blows as its quite pricy.  So I quit.  I came back and now you can earn and unlock characters.  If you can put a little time into it, you can unlock 1 cheap character after 2-3 days.  Not so bad.  You can also "gamble" for your unlock.  You can put up that 2-3 days work for 1 random character.. which is nice if you only own 1 or 2.  The rules are you get a random hero unlock.  If you have the hero already, then it just upgrades the ultimate on that hero.  BUT - it lets you get $20 champs for 2-3 days of putzing around, which is much more appealing. 

I know most folks on the SD forums are not huge comic fans, but when I unlocked the super solider serum for frank castle, I was nerdtastic.  They have so much marvel lore here and there.  I really dig it.  I'm sure I'll get sick of it, but again, its a free to play game on steam.  It's like diablo.  Give it a look if you like super hero games and/or diablo.  I'm enjoying. 

 

Night all!

Reply #4280 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting pacov, reply 4278

well, new ranked team went 5/0.  That apparently places you in silver 1.  So...woo.... silver 1... we did it.  ...

We should scrimmage! 

Reply #4281 from JoeUser Forums Top

heh... wouldn't we already be playing more ranked 5's games if we had 5 of us on at the same time?  Now you are just talking crazy looking for 10 of us. 

Reply #4282 from Demigod Forums Top

The new 5v5 is fun.  I did an all kass v kass game...e was glitched for most people, so we couldn't even use it.  q did practically no poke... the fights were weird.  kassadins aaing each other, you are 1v2 and think you're losing but they do more magic damage to you which makes your attack speed insane and then you just rip them apart

teamfights were bad though, you couldn't use any skills ever and it came to who had the guts to stay put while getting whaled on.

Ashe 5v5 is pretty fun.  Also did a sona one on rift with all lanes, it was interesting

Reply #4283 from Demigod Forums Top

they did a really good vid on sjokz - worth a watch

 

Reply #4284 from Demigod Forums Top

When I watched the early S3 Europe LCS I thought she seemed kind of new...  Doing pretty well now.

We need more Axes of Kill Kill Carnage.

 

Reply #4285 from JoeUser Forums Top

I should be on around 7 or 8PM tonight and looking to play LoL exclusively.  Spent all yesterday nerding it up in marvel heroes.  Looking forward to wanting to play jinx to see her banned every game. 

Reply #4286 from Demigod Forums Top

so... if you are laning against a jinx, remember that her w is a line nuke that stops with the 1st target it hits.  You can stay behind creeps as if u were up against a blitz.

Reply #4287 from Demigod Forums Top

SOB - jinx is out and now heimer rework is on pbe... decisions, decisions. 

 

and xerath cxhanges on pbe also... jebus

 

 

But pbe is down... ah well

Reply #4288 from Demigod Forums Top

i don't think any one anticipated you flashing into 3 people into a bush with no vision. That's something you would see in a "haha look at these noobs in Bronze Elo". i'm sure Zen God didn't appreciate it.

 

You've been exhuming toxicity and negativity to everyone around you the past two weeks. You constantly whine about everything everyone does. It's a catch-22; no matter what they do you find out something wrong.

And you don't even compliment people or acknowledge when people do make good plays. 

 

Meanwhile everyone else is laughing and having fun eh? 

Reply #4289 from Demigod Forums Top

Great job, hedgie!  /s.  Was just trolled by my pals in the last game... last 2 games if you care to do any analysis of what folks did. 

/begin less angry commentary - I will try to keep that more in mind, though. 

I actually kind of had a bit of an unfun night.  Happy I got to try jinx out.  Less happy about other factors.  Totally fine if folks think every game was my fault for playing awful.  Sorry fellas.  Not really looking for a blahblah drama up your butt fest.  Just saying I did not really enjoy myself and perhaps I'm to blame for trolling everyone excessively tonight or something.  I don't think so, but all are entitled to their opinions.  Hopefully there will be a reduction in less fun times.  I started trying to actively recruit some new blood here and there recently, but I'm a bit into another game atm as well.  I think getting some additional folks involved is good. Think I've added about 5-7 new folks - 3-4 quality peopple as far as I can tell so far. 

 

 

Anyway, I tried out the heimer remake on pbe (too tired to check xer).  Mixed feelings.  1st - it feels like syndra would completely wreck him.  They should make the change so you can't toss turrets.  If they did that, then he actuallys plays alot like I always thought he should play.  Guy sets up turrets to defend and advance.  Check the last 5-10 minutes of tonights vid if you want a quick peak if someone hasn't already posted something on reddit.  I won't be making a vid this time around outside of that.  I like/hate his new rockets.  His original rockets were much better imo.  Auto-lock.  Now you aim them.  Grenade is a bit better.  He has a karma-esk ult... but it does cost like 100 mana.  Mixed feelings there. 

off to bed. 

 

Reply #4290 from Stardock Forums Top

I think that the point was that everybody was playing pretty badly.  I don't think that anybody was concentrating all that hard and everybody was making lots of bad plays.

BUT, most people were going with it and having a few laughs all in all.  You were being fairly negative about it despite making silly plays all over the place just like the rest of us.

So yeah, we were all bad, but I think that you were being a bit of a hypocrite about it.

Reply #4291 from Stardock Forums Top

@Pacov

In all seriousness, I'm not sure what was going on with you last night.  Were you tilted so badly that you didn't realize that you were actually playing worse than the friends that were supposedly trolling you?  Do you actually not realize that you make folks play worse when you're making non-stop sarcastic/negative comments about how they're playing and how the games going?

It's great that you wanna expand the people you're playing with but I think you should maybe take a break from the game for a night when you're in whatever mood you were in.  I find it remarkable that you've found a group of pals who can have fun while you're constantly mocking them as you're making non-stop bad plays and mistakes of your own, but I'm thinking you're not realizing how many people don't really enjoy that atmosphere.

Just something to keep in mind when you're playing with the new blood.

 

Reply #4292 from Demigod Forums Top

in house 5v5 starting in a few min.  guessing we play 2 games.

Reply #4293 from Demigod Forums Top

had a lot of fun tonight. I was able to go adc every game which is always fun for me anyway. 

Game 1 - jinx.  They put a ton of pressure on bot, but our other lanes dominated.  My support was a bit smeh (weakest player on either team imo (hunny had him as his support the next game - so I'd wager he will agree).  Anyway, bot takes a ton of pressure, but other lanes do well.  I end with 7/4/14 on jinx.  The weird thing to me - I certainly wasn't a game changer.  I played  ok overall, but they banned out jinx the rest of the night. Not entirely sure why.  Maybe someone else on my team played her?  Honestly, not sure why it was suddenly ban worthy.

Game 2 - trist.  This was an absolute stomp.  Game ends surrender at 20.  We pick off their jax at the start of the game during an invade... who eats a red pot, flashes and dies.  Then, for some crazy ass reason, they swap malzahar to bot lane to fight trist/thresh - also they don't give malz blue buff.  So, really, its just a matter of time until he's trashed.  We freeze the lane and completely zone him out for 1-2 minutes, then start pressuring.  That and our jungle immediately went to support our top while their jungle did extremely little to help out malz.  Anyway, bad strat and it just results in a trollish stomp on our part.

Game 3 - my fav game of the night.  I end up with a replacement support - eg we added a new, unranked guy.  He goes thresh and plays quite well off his high arse.  Hunny ends up running blitz as support for some reason.  Anyway, we have a bunch of good fights.  Things go back and forth a bit.  We make a few unorthdox decisions here and there.  Interesting at the very least. We end up winning the game by outplaying them while they had baron buff and were going at one of our outer turrets.  We end up acing them and then tanking the 2 base towers to end the game about 3 seconds before anyone is back up.  We had some really decent communication on and off.  Particular, Dan calling out to keep on ryze multiple times helped my tired arse stay focused.  The mid laners on my team did really well in all 3 games. 

 

Anyway, it was fun.  Game 3 was def my fav anyway.  I might break the vids out later and post on youtube, but it will be the last vid you see on the twitch archive if you want to take a look. 

Reply #4294 from Demigod Forums Top

This cracks me up way more than it should: 

Reply #4295 from Demigod Forums Top

ranked 5's begin.  streaming... might play 2

Reply #4296 from Demigod Forums Top

playing in house 5v5s - mostly regular crew streaming

Reply #4297 from Demigod Forums Top

short vlog incoming - probably of interest to folks that follow the stream or those I play w regularly.  2-5 min from now

Reply #4299 from Stardock Forums Top

Re: Comic Books

I love comic books.  Favorites were Gen 13, X-Men, Preacher, and The Maxx.

 

Re: Experimental Roles 

I see the appeal of Lissandra support, especially to go with a Karl Rammus.  Hunny and I were living in terror, so much that Hunny didn't spec his E the entire laning phase so that he wouldn't push the lane and make us a free meal for you guys.

But I also see the benefits of Teemo.  TF is great on him cause he scales with the AP and can proc the on-hit by planting shrooms, and maybe a he'd make a decent split pusher? Probably never the best choice to have as your Marksman, but considering Liss support hasn't made an impact on the competitive scene as of yet maybe you shouldn't have gotten upset about the choice?  He did go 13/2 after all.

I'm not sure how you decide where the line gets drawn between hipster and troll champion picks.

 

Re: Negativity

Second inhouse game we played last night, I was complete trash.  There was a little good natured teasing when I gave up first blood.  Something about how Varus got the kill and it was fitting that the person who gave it to him was gonna have to lane against him, that sorta thing.  But nothing nasty, no sarcastic comments.  Hunny was super cool about Sona's magical hook attracting ass, never gave me any shit about losing our lane for us... probably cause he couldn't get a word in edgewise with me apologizing for being a dumpster.

So I think that helped me to get things together and not be a total waste mid and late game and we won.

 

tl;dr Comics are cool, graphic novels are better.  Negativity -> Team Playing Worse -> More Negativity -> Pissed Off Team Calling You Out On Your Mistakes ->Team And You Playing Like Shit -> No Es Bueno.

Reply #4300 from Demigod Forums Top

So with the re-release of all the old holiday/special event skins what ones do you think you will be picking up?

I would really like to get headless hecarim, zombie ryze, reindeer kogmaw, maybe santa gragas and if any of the new harrowing skins are nice ill probably get them.